A headline today at the Minnesota Independent notes:
Poll: Majority of Minnesotans ‘embarrassed’ by Bachmann.
Recent news coming from Rochester may help illustrate why Minnesotans feel that way. Yesterday,
Mayo's Health Policy Blog posted this entry (emphasis added):
Payment Reform and Coverage for All a Step in the Right Direction
We have been asked about the financial
impact of health care reform bills on Mayo Clinic. We reiterate that
both the House and Senate bills include important steps toward creating
a more equitable and higher value health care system, consistent with
the cornerstones
of the Mayo Clinic Health Policy Center. We believe that reform
provisions, which set the stage to rework the way Medicare pays for
care (with the goal of transforming the current payment methods) have
the potential to improve incentives for high quality doctors and
hospitals and make it more possible for them to offer the highest
quality care at the most reasonable cost.
We have concerns about some of the across-the-board cuts in Medicare
payments associated with the proposed legislation, which are a
continuation of historical approaches to cutting prices rather than
addressing utilization of care. However, we cannot quantify the net
impact of those cuts with any level of specificity. In addition, the
potential positive and negative financial impact of several reform
provisions can not be quantified at this point.
Expanding insurance coverage to more Americans is the right thing to
do, and will also have a financial effect on providers. Doctors and
hospitals will see fewer financial losses from charity care and bad
debt. Yet, to the extent that this is accomplished through Medicaid
expansion, it will result in more patients being cared for in a system
that reimburses below cost and does not reward good care provided at a
reasonable cost.
We are confident that expanding insurance coverage and moving
Medicare in the direction of paying for value will positively transform
health care delivery in the United States. Reforming health care in
America is essential. The status quo is not sustainable, and Mayo
Clinic remains firmly committed to moving forward with patient-centered
reform.
While the Mayo Clinic's Health Policy Center is optimistic that the pay-for-quality reforms in the bill are good step and cautiously guarded about the across-the-board cuts, the gentlewoman from Minnesota's Sixth was quite confident that Mayo would suffer thirty percent cuts in federal funding in her remarks to the audience at a campaign event for MN01 GOP congressional hopeful Allen Quist.
